Wednesday, June 04, 2008

The Power of Bone

Kids like Bone. This is not surprising, of course, but still very true.

Background: A few weekends ago I was back home visiting my parents. I had along with me the massive one volume Bone collection, and was re-reading it because it was our book discussion group book for May. My nephew, age 8, was visiting and saw me reading the book. Up until a year ago my nephew was what would be described as a 'reluctant reader', but in the past few months he's become much more engaged with reading for pleasure. Recently he has been borrowing (and devouring) my dad's Calvin & Hobbes collections, so he's getting into comics as well. My nephew became quite interested in the huge Bone collection, and wanted me to read it to him. So we sat on he big recliner and I started reading it out loud to him. He was quite engaged with it, and after we made it through the first three chapters he began reading it on his own. He was disappointed that I had to take it back to Ann Arbor with me, but I needed to finish it in time for that Tuesday's book club meeting.

I considered loaning my copy to him when I was done, but I have one of the early copies of the one-volume edition and the pages are falling out. So I hopped onto Amazon and ordered a copy to be shipped to my nephew directly. It arrived last Friday, and he completely finished all 1300+ pages over the following 48 hours. Simply put, my nephew loves Bone! (My sister asked me if I know of any other 1000 page comic books that could keep him entertained!)